


Birthday Blinks

by ShadowCrusade



Category: RWBY
Genre: And its qrows bday aka the ides of march, Birthday, Fluff, M/M, no beta head empty only this oneshot, no you cant change my mind on that, the ides of march is qrows bday and you will have to take that from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 21:34:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30061863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowCrusade/pseuds/ShadowCrusade
Summary: When Clover stays on the topic about why Qrow doesn't celebrate his birthday, he decides to give him a story as to why
Relationships: Qrow Branwen/Clover Ebi
Comments: 12
Kudos: 32





	Birthday Blinks

**Author's Note:**

> Eyyyyyy It's the Ides of March everyone! Aka my hc for Qrow's bday! So uhhhh heres this fic lol

“Why don’t you like celebrating your birthday?” Clover asked. This wasn’t the first time the teal-eyed man had asked that question. And if Qrow was realistic, it probably wouldn’t be the last either.

“I was just never really that big on them?” Qrow offered as he moved a box over. He was currently on the search for his birth certificate. The notification for his renewal for his huntsman license had come in through the mail and now Qrow needed that document. With Oz around, he hadn’t really needed it before since with Oz’s influence, he could afford to let someone else deal with it. 

With the war with Salem over and Oz gone, now Qrow had to his renewal on his own. And he needed his birth certificate, a document he hadn’t seen a decade or two. It was a minor problem.

Minor being an understatement. 

“I didn’t really see the big deal.”

“Have you ever celebrated it before?”

Qrow sifted through another box. “Yeah, when Raven and I were at Beacon, that’s when we started to celebrate our birthdays more. Mainly because Summer liked to throw parties and we just went along with it. To the two of us, it was just another day in the year that marked how old we were. Not that big of a deal.” 

“Well, what if I wanted to celebrate your birthday?” Clover asked. “Would you hate it?” The other man sat next to Qrow and opened up another box in order to help. 

Qrow chuckled and shook his head. “Nah, I wouldn’t hate it. But, my birthday doesn’t have to be a big deal either. I would honestly be more than okay with a homemade dinner and nice movie at home.” He opened up another box and found absolutely nothing he needed. “Okay, next weekend, you and I are doing some serious spring cleaning. I don’t even know what half of this crap is in these boxes.” Clover chuckled at his husband’s antics. He placed his head on the other man’s shoulder which distracted Qrow from his search. 

“Is it a tribal thing? Or genuinely not caring?” Clover asked after a bit. 

Qrow sighed. “You’re not letting this go, are you?”

“Birthdays are important.” Clover said. “Even if they aren’t necessary, I think they're important.” 

“What were your birthdays like?” Qrow asked. “Growing up.” 

Clover was silent for a moment. “When I was younger we would have family over with the cake, little party games that were age appropriate, and obviously gifts. As I got older, I started to spend more birthdays with friends and out in the city. But, family time was always a promise. Why?”

“My birthdays in the past were filled with combat training and survival skills.” Qrow stated. “Raven and I didn’t really know when our birthday was until we went into Beacon. I had an idea it was sometime in the spring, but that was about it.”

“Wait, you didn’t even know your birthday until you were seventeen?” Clover asked. “Did they make up a day and call it good?” 

“I don’t know. My uncle said that that was my birthday and I just went with it.” Qrow told him. “I never doubted him, so I just assumed that he was telling the truth.” Family in the Branwen tribe was almost non-existent. His relationship with his father was absolutely non-existent and the only other family that he knew (outside of Raven) was his uncle. His Uncle Wayland made things better for him while he was in the tribe, that’s for sure. 

“So, you never celebrated your birthday while with the tribe?” The teal eyed man seemed almost saddened by the question he asked. 

Qrow was about to answer ‘no’ when he remembered something faintly from his past. It had been so long, that he had almost forgotten it. He wondered, for a moment, if that memory was a dream. Although, with everything that happened that day, it had to have been real.

“Well, there was one time when my uncle and I celebrated it. Even if he didn’t tell me that it was my birthday at the time.” Qrow recalled. Clover looked at him expectantly, teal eyes full of curiosity. He sighed. “I guess it would have been my fifteenth birthday that this happened.”

* * *

It had been raining that morning when he was awakened. The pitter patter sounds of the rain that lightly fell around the Branwen Tribe settlement was comforting. If Qrow could, he would fall asleep to the sound of the rain all the time. The continuous sounds of rain always soothed Qrow, even if people around him were inconvenienced by it. 

There was a shift somewhere close to him. It wasn’t a Grimm, he was too close to the settlement for that. Plus, he didn’t feel like he was in any danger. Regardless, he slowly stirred from his light slumber and blinked his eyes open. At the entrance of his small tent, was a tall, broad-shouldered figure. 

“Uncle Wayland?” Qrow croaked out. His voice was thick with sleep. 

“You up, little bird?”

“Well, now I am.” Qrow rolled back over in his sleeping bag. “Although, I think I’m gonna try and get some sleep.” 

“Well before you do that, I need you to come with me somewhere.” His uncle’s husky voice filtered through. 

“How long are we gonna be gone?”

“Probably all day.” 

Qrow groaned. It was way too early for him to be awake. Although, his uncle never asked anything of him that was outside tribal needs, so clearly this was important. Qrow thought about it for a minute before he sat up, his uncle still just outside his tent. 

“Alright, where are we going?” 

They left before most of the tribe had been awake. Qrow had no idea where his uncle was even taking him. Although, with the distance from the tribe, he wasn’t about to complain. The rain had lessened to the point where Qrow only felt a few drops hit the top of his head after a while. The clouds weren’t dispersing at the moment, but perhaps they would as the day progressed. 

The two didn’t say much on the journey. A few remarks about the terrain here and there, but nothing worth holding a conversation about. Qrow kept an eye out for Grimm. They had a bad habit of clinging to him thanks to his semblance. His uncle, however, seemed entirely unbothered by the situation and strided through the forest of Anima without much of a worry. 

Qrow wished he could afford that kind of optimism. 

Soon, the two came to a village. Although, it looked like to Qrow that there was some sort of festival going on. There were bright colors everywhere, not even the light gray skies dampened the joyous mood. There were all sorts of festivities and even little games to be played in this village. 

“Are they celebrating some sort of holiday?” Qrow asked his uncle. His uncle nodded. “What holiday?”

“The Ides of March.” 

“What’s that?”

Wayland chuckled. “The Ides of March is the day that one of Vale’s great kings was killed by his own friends and peers.”

“People celebrate that?” Qrow asked, mildly horrified. 

His uncle nodded. “To be fair, the man was an absolute dickhead. He had it coming.” 

“But why celebrate the death of a Valean King? We’re in Anima.” Qrow wondered. 

“During the Great War, The King of Vale was responsible for burning down some of Anima’s more sacred cities. Many cultures and other languages were lost when he destroyed the Library of Arcadia. So, as a petty consequence, Anima celebrates the day his own hubris betrayed him.” 

“That seems harsh.”

“It’s the way things are Qrow.” His uncle stated. He began to walk towards the village. “Well, come on then, we won’t be here all day.”

“Wait, what?”

“Qrow, if you want to experience the festival, now's your chance before I decide to send you back to the tribe.”

Qrow ran to catch up to his uncle.

* * *

“So, your uncle took you to a festival on the Ides of March.” Clover inquired. The other man nodded. “Is that why they marked it as such on your birth certificate?” 

Qrow shrugged. “I don’t really know. Once Raven and I left for Beacon, I never went back to the tribe. And I could never trust Raven to say something on my behalf, so I never got the chance to ask.” He opened another box that looked to be filled with important documentation. “I might have found my box.”

The two men began to sift through the box. Some of it was old mission reports from Ozpin, while others were forms he had to fill out during his time at Beacon. Medical documents, school documents, but the one thing he needed, he couldn’t find. 

Qrow groaned. “Where the fuck did I leave my fucking birth certificate?” He wondered aloud. He had been searching for this one piece of paper for the past couple of hours. Even with Clover at his side, it seems that the document might have been lost forever. 

“Is this one that was made in Vale when you went to Beacon?” 

The dark haired man shook his head. “No, it was made in Anima when the decision was made to send Rae and I to Beacon. It was filled with other false documents to hide the fact that we were from the tribe, but the birth certificates were real enough.” He had already asked Taiyang if there was a possibility that his birth certificate was at his house. The man confirmed that it wasn’t there or any of the old storage boxes. 

_ Think. If I brought it with me in the move to this house, where might I put it?  _ He began to sort his thoughts through as he could hear Clover open up another box. The longer Qrow thought, the more irritated he got. Soon, the sound of a shattered glass captured both of their attention and Qrow sighed. 

“Sorry.” He mumbled out. 

“Maybe, we should pick this up again tomorrow?” Clover suggested. Qrow nodded as he pinched the bridge of his nose. The frustration was fast building and he just wanted to find the damn thing so he could renew his huntsman license. He started to put the papers back where he found them and Clover started to put away the box he had been working on when he paused. 

“Something wrong?” Qrow asked. His husband very gently lifted out an old picture frame. The glass was cracked at the top right corner, which created the spider web pattern. Qrow leaned over to his husband to get a better look at what he had been holding and immediately felt his breath catch. “I didn’t think....”

“I’m guessing this was your uncle?” Clover probed gently. Qrow couldn’t say much of anything, but he suspected that Clover might have gotten the hint. 

The picture had the two Branwen men as they posed with a large wax model of the King of Vale. Qrow had posed with Harbinger as if he was about to slice the man’s head off while his Uncle simply laughed in the picture. Qrow remembered that his Uncle managed to get the photo and how Qrow had kept it safe and hidden away once they got back. It was Summer that got him the picture frame for it, so it wouldn’t get ripped up. 

“I forgot all about the photo.” 

“Might need to be reframed, we could go buy a new one later.” Clover offered as he gently removed the photo from the frame. Careful not to anger the glass anymore than it was. 

As he popped open the back of the frame, another paper slipped out. Folded up, brown-tan color with time. Qrow grabbed it and as he did, the memory of where he had placed his birth certificate came back to him. He placed the certificate in the back of the frame, to keep it safe. A reminder that his time in the tribe had its moments. A memory he wanted to treasure. 

He opened up the form, and his birth certificate stared back at him. 

“Well, would you look at that?” Clover mused. “Looks like you get to stay a huntsman after all.” Qrow lightly nudged his husband as the two laughed. He handed the document to Clover who took a look at it. 

“You might want to put that somewhere safe before I lose it again. “I’m gonna run to the bathroom real quick. Maybe afterwards, we can grab something to eat?” Qrow stood up as he stretched out his limbs. 

Clover nodded. “I think I might cook your favorite thing instead, since it’s your birthday.” 

Qrow rolled his eyes as he walked away. “Whatever, dork.” 

Clover went back to the document in hand and re-read it. 

Qrow Silas Branwen. Son of Caliban Branwen and Eira Sylvia Awbrey.

The green eyed man wondered briefly, if Qrow was even aware of what was written on the document, or if he knew the heritage behind an old name like Awbrey. 

“Shit! Clover! The door to the bathroom is stuck again!” 

He’d ask later about it he supposed. 


End file.
